Illuminated sign



2 Sheets-Sheet 1 W. H. HARRINGTON ET AL ILLUMINATED SIGN Filed March 30, 1933 iNVENTORS WILLIAM H. HARRINGTON ARVID H. NERO BY THEIR ATTORNEYS WM UNITED STATES PATENT OFICE iLLUMIINATED SIGN William H. Harrington and Arvld H. Nero, West Hartford, Comm, assignors to The Arrow-Hart & Hegeman Electric Company, Hartford, Conn a corporation of Connecticut Application March 30, 1933, Serial No. 663,594

3 Claims. (Cl. 40132) This invention relates to illuminated signs. base and covering the cavity 12, is a face plate More particularly it relates to illuminated house 30 which may be stamped from sheet metal or numbers which are adapted to be permanently inmade of molded insulating material according to stalled within a recess or an outlet box in the wall conventional practice, and provided with a cenof a house or building. trally located rectangular aperture 31 behind so It is an object of our invention to provide an which is positioned a sign unit hereinafter more illuminated sign which may be inexpensively particularly described. The face plate 30 may be manufactured and easily installed. secured to the supporting ears 26 by screws 32,

Another object of our in ention is to provide andthese screws may also serve to hold the sign 10 an illuminated house number in which the deunit between the face plate 30 and the base 12. 5 sired number may be made up from preformed The metal around the apertures for screws 32 is interchangeable stencils or the like. preferably extruded toward the back of the plate 1 Another object of our invention is to provide thus, at once, providing for counter sinking the a self-contained bodily removable sign unit which screw heads and providing protuberances 33 to 1: may be assembled separately from the remainder assist in the positioning of the sign'unit behind 70 of the device and later assembled with the rethe aperture in the face plate as will hereinafter mainder of the device. more fully appear.

Other objects and advantages of our invention Referring to Figure 3 it will be noted that the will become apparent as it is described in consign unit is formed of two metallic mounting an nection with the accompanying drawings. plates 36 and 38 approximately equal in size and 75 In the drawings:- each having a rectangular aperture in its center Figure 1 is a plan view of one form of our inwhich is adapted to register with the aperture 31 vention, completely assembled. in the face plate 30. One of these plates (the out- Figure 2 is a rear view of the construction er plate 38 in the form as illustrated in Figure 5) shown in Figure 1 with portions of the device may have four lateral extensions or tongues 39 broken away for the purpose of illustration. which are able to be bent over the other plate Figure 3 is a plan view of the sign unit which (the inner plate 36) to hold the two plates tois used in the construction shown in Figure 1. In gether. To keep the mounting plates 36 and 38 this figure portions of. the unit are broken away from slipping upon one another when the tongues 30 for the sake of clearer illustration. 39 are located at the ends of plate 38, the plate Figure 4 is a plan view of the base and socket 36 is cut away adjacent the tongues 39 forming construction upon which the face plate and sign shoulders 41. As illustrated, the plate 36 has unit visible in Figures 1 and 3 may be mounted. provided around its central aperture, which is Figure 5 is a section view taken on line 55 of slightly larger than the aperture in plate 38, offset 5 -Figure 1, portions or marginal flanges to receive light- Figure 6 is a plan view of a modified form of pervious sign means which will now be described. our invention. In this view portions of the de- The light-pervious sign means is held between vice are broken away for the purpose of illustrathe mounting plates 36 and.38. The means comtion. prises a plate 46 of translucent white glass of 40 Figure '7 is a transverse section view taken on rectangular shape, being in size slightly larger line 7-7 of the construction shown in Figure 6. than the aperture 31 in the face plate 30 but Referring to the drawings, a base 10 of insusmall enough to fit within the flanges 40. This lating material, preferably white such as porceplate presses against the bottoms or inturned porlain, is provided with an open cavity 12 in which tions of the flanges. It serves to diffuse the light 45 is positioned an electric lamp 14 whose screwfrom the lamp 14. Lying against or next to the shell base 16 engages with a conventional ringtranslucent plate is an opaque stencil 44 of cardtype, socket-member 18 which is secured to the board, fibre or other suitable material. This base 12 and has a wire terminal 20. The center stencil may be made up of a plurality of panels contact of the lamp base engages with a metallic 44a to Me, some of which have numerals cut conductor 22 which is secured to the base 12 and through them so that any desired number whet has a wire terminal 24. Supporting ears 26 of er of one, two, three or four digits may be readily conventional form are provided on opposite sides made up. If the number consists of less than of the base and in order that the base may be four digits, blank panels like 44a and 44a may be secured in a wall cavity or outlet box according provided at the ends of the stencil. It will be 5 to common practice. Lying over the top of the apparent that other designs than numerals may this invention to have the number or design.

painted upon either the translucent or transparent plate. The plates 36 and 38 each have a pair of holes 49 on each side of the central aperture which register with each other and with the holes in the faceplate through which the screws 32 pass. The holes in the plates 36 and 38 are large enough to accommodate the extrusions 33 of the face plate so as to position the sign unit behind the face plate as hereinbefore indicated.

From the foregoing it will be observed that the translucent and transparent plates 46 and 42 respectively and the stencil 44 or design means 44 may be inserted in the offset portion of the plate 36 and then the plate 38 placed upon them and the tongues 39 bent over to hold all of these parts together to form a self contained, bodily movable unit.

Referring now to Figures 6 and 7 it will be noted that the construction shown therein is substantially the same in principle as that just described, but since the form shown in Figures 6 and 7 is smaller, for numbers having no more than two digits, a smaller insulating base 110 is provided for the electric lamp, and it is supported on a U-shaped supporting strap 115. The construction of this lamp holder is well known from its use in the art behind pilot or warning light devices, and it need not be described in detail herein.

The sign unit in Figures 6 and 7 differs from the sign unit shown in Figure 3 in the respect that the plate 38 is omitted. The transparent and translucent members 142 and 146 respectively, and the stencil which is located between them are held in the offset portion or flange 140 of the mounting plate 136 by reason of the engagement of the face plate 130 with the mounting plate. The mounting plate 136 is positioned behind the aperture 131 in the face plate by means of extrusions like the extrusions 33 in Figures 2 and 5 in the same manner as was described in connection with Figures 1 to 5.

In both of the forms of the invention described moisture may be excluded from the sign by the provision of a rectangular rubber sheet or gasket 50 (Figs. 1-5) or 150 '(Figs. 6-7) between the base 10 (or 110) and the mounting plate 38 (or 138). To permit the light from the electric lamp to penetrate the sign means this rubber sheet must be provided with an opening at least as large as the opening in the face plate. The sheet will be, in size, slightly larger than the plates30 and 130 respectively. This rubber sheet will be held in position by the same screws 32 which hold the face plate and sign unit to the base.

Many modifications and changes within the scope of our invention may be devised by those skilled in the art, therefore we do not limit ourselves to the construction shown.

We claim:

1. An illuminated sign comprising an insulating base having an electric lamp socket, an apertured face plate, means to secure said plate to said base and a sign carrying device secured between said plate and base, said sign device comprising a pair of parallel apertured plates one of which has tongues bent over the other to hold said plates together, and one of said parallel plates having flanges receiving a translucent sheet, a transparent sheet and a stencil and holding them between said parallel plates, the same means which holds said face plate also holding said sign device in position.

2. An illuminated sign comprising an insulating base containing an electric lamp socket, a face plate, means to secure said face plate to said base, and a sign-containing unit held between said plate and said base by said means, said unit having an offset portion, a translucent member, a transparent member and a plurality of interchangeable stencils seated in said offset portion.

3. An illuminated sign comprising an insulating base containing an electric lamp socket, a face plate, means to secure said face plate to said base, and a sign-containing unit held between said plate and said base by said means, said unit having an offset portion, a light-pervious member, and a plurality of interchangeable stencils seated in said ofiset portion.

WILLIAM H. HARRINGTON. ARVID H. NERO. 

